Tech
Inside Google’s Two-Year Frenzy to Catch Up With OpenAIParesh Dave and Arielle Pardes | Wired
“Wired spoke with more than 50 current and former employees—including engineers, marketers, legal and safety experts, and a dozen top executives—to trace the most frenzied and culture-reshaping period in the company’s history. …This is the story, being told with detailed recollections from several executives for the first time, of those turbulent two years and the trade-offs required along the way.”
Robotics
Watch the Atlas Robot Bust a Move in Boston Dynamics’ Latest VideoAnna Washenko | Engadget
“In the [new clip], [Boston Dynamics’] Atlas robot demonstrates several types of full-body movement, starting with a walk and advancing to a cartwheel and even a spot of break dancing. The different actions were developed using reinforcement learning that used motion capture and animation as source materials.”
Computing
Not Everyone Is Convinced by Microsoft’s Topological QubitsDina Genkina | IEEE Spectrum
“The Microsoft team has not yet reached the milestone where the scientific community would agree that they’ve created a single topological qubit. ‘They have a concept chip which has eight lithographically fabricated qubits,’ Eggleston says. ‘But they’re not functional qubits, that’s the fine print. It’s their concept of what they’re moving towards.’”
Future
In Las Vegas, a Former SpaceX Engineer Is Pulling CO2 From the Air to Make ConcreteAdele Peters | Fast Company
“In an industrial park in North Las Vegas, near an Amazon warehouse and a waste storage facility, a new carbon removal plant is beginning to pull CO2 from the air and store it permanently. Called Project Juniper, it’s the first ‘integrated’ plant of its kind in the US, meaning that it handles both carbon capture and storage in one place.”
Future
Judge Disses Star Trek Icon Data’s Poetry While Ruling AI Can’t Author WorksAshley Belanger | Ars Technica
“Data ‘might be worse than ChatGPT at writing poetry,’ but his ‘intelligence is comparable to that of a human being,’ Millet wrote. If AI ever reached Data levels of intelligence, Millett suggested that copyright laws could shift to grant copyrights to AI-authored works. But that time is apparently not now. ‘There will be time enough for Congress and the Copyright Office to tackle those issues when they arise,’ Millett wrote.”
Science
Is Dark Energy Getting Weaker? New Evidence Strengthens the Case.Charlie Wood | Quanta
“Last year, an enormous map of the cosmos hinted that the engine driving cosmic expansion might be sputtering. …[This week], the scientists [reported] that they have analyzed more than twice as much data as before and that it points more strongly to the same conclusion: Dark energy is losing steam.”
Robotics
1X Will Test Humanoid Robots in ‘a Few Hundred’ Homes in 2025Maxwell Zeff | TechCrunch
“These in-home tests will allow 1X to collect data on how Neo Gamma operates in the home. Early adopters will help create a large, valuable dataset that 1X can use to train in-house AI models and upgrade Neo Gamma’s capabilities.”
Space
See the First Ever Footage of Sunset on the Moon Captured by Blue GhostGeorgina Torbet | Digital Trends
“With the Blue Ghost lunar mission coming to an end this week, the spacecraft has gifted scientists and the public with an incredible send-off. The moon lander captured the first ever HD imagery of a sunset as seen from the moon, and the images have been stitched together into a video.”
Tech
The Unbelievable Scale of AI’s Pirated-Books ProblemAlex Reisner | The Atlantic
“LibGen and other such pirated libraries make information more accessible, allowing people to read original work without paying for it. Yet generative-AI companies such as Meta have gone a step further: Their goal is to absorb the work into profitable technology products that compete with the originals. Will these be better for society than the human dialogue they are already starting to replace?”
Space
Webb Telescope Captures First Direct Evidence of Carbon Dioxide on an ExoplanetIsaac Schultz | Gizmodo
“The images feature HR 8799, a multiplanet system 130 light-years from Earth. The discovery not only reveals a chemical compound essential on Earth for processes including photosynthesis and the carbon cycle, but also indicates that gas giant planets elsewhere in the galaxy formed in a similar way to our local giants, Jupiter, and Saturn.”
Computing
Top Developers Want Nvidia Blackwell Chips. Everyone Else, Not So MuchAnissa Gardizy | The Information
“Jensen Huang turned Nvidia into the third most valuable company in the world by designing chips that were way ahead of their time. But Huang’s remarks on Tuesday suggest he’s pulling far ahead of some customers, and the growing gap between what he’s selling and what they’re buying could spell trouble.”
The post This Week’s Awesome Tech Stories From Around the Web (Through March 22) appeared first on SingularityHub.